The Radiance

A NEW YORK TIMES NOVEL EVERYONE WILL BE TALKING ABOUT IN 2026 • A TIME MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2026 “Simply put, a work of genius.” —Abraham Verghese, author of The Covenant of Water A mysterious accident along a country road sparks an awakening and an investigation in Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright and acclaimed novelist Ayad Akhtar’s most daring work yet—a visionary novel of spiritual transformation in an age of fracture—“bordering at times on the ineffable” (Mary Gaitskill, bestselling author of Bad Behavior). When a hit-and-run shatters more than his body, a writer is plunged into a spiritual awakening he can’t tell from madness. In its grip, he’s drawn to a brilliant campus colleague by an uncanny pull, and into a scandal that threatens to destroy them both.